We direct a river of money into their depleted coffers, for reasons I’m willing to entertain as being sound and reasonable, too big to die, that sort of thing.
But we are not to know who the people are who are going to end up with our cash? Huh? Is this some sort of national security thing? Are they worried we’ll form lynching parties and storm Wall Street. (A notion with some romantic appeal, I’ll grant, but impractical…)
Is it the Chinese? Soros? ACORN? Anybody with the slightest idea what the bleeding Og is going on here?
I think this sort of “cash transfer” or bailout should have government oversight. It’s a lot of money. Uncle Sam should be watching where it goes, how it is spent, and what the return is. Without oversight, it is too easy for people to get sloppy and careless. There was a “short blip” on the radio just the other day, about a banking corporation that laid off a large number of people just before Christmas. They were supposedly in a bad way and had no choice. Yet, when they got their “pot o’ gold” from the government, they used it to throw a big party (complete with top name entertainers). The excuse was, that the money came from a “different account”. If they could afford to piss away that kind of money, they sure didn’t need the Gov to foot the bill. Then I am sure, there will be those individuals who get caught pocketing the money for themselves.
This is a LOT of money, money that comes from the government. The government has the right to know how that money is being used.
I am the government! You are the government! WE have the right to know! And somebody doesn’t want us to. As a general rule of thumb, when the powers that be would prefer that I be shielded from some dangerous truth, that is precisely the truth I demand to hear.
Based on little more than dark suspicion, I think its the Chinese. I think the money is going towards a “good faith” gesture to keep them from panicking. I can’t prove it to save both our souls, but that’s what I think.
I agree. If things are being done honestly and above board, then the books will be right, the money will be tracked properly, and any auditor can walk in and say “show me”. The very idea that the recipients of the money do NOT want the transparency and accountablilty, is a huge big gigantic humongous ginormous red warning flag.
Come on. Every company has a method, a system, of tracking hours worked and money (coming in and going out). They have to, to stay in business. So, if they are not doing this with the “new” money, then they are 1) hiding it for possibly criminal reasons, or 2) too stupid to stay in business.
Here’s my WAG - AIG was huge into credit default swaps and other types of investment insurance. Propping them up is one of the legs propping up the banking sector. If we knew who the money was going to, we’d know who had what kind of exposure to this whole mess, which would create runs on the huge banks, which would be bad. Again, just my WAG as to the reasons… I agree with you with the need for transparency however - get it all out in the open and treat everyone like adults.
Just as an aside, it’s good to provide a link to a story, so that someone picking up this thread in 6 months or a year or whenever has a better idea of what prompted the question.
Pretty much my thought as well. I also agree that there should be some level of transparency, at least some level of government oversight…but I don’t think that it would necessarily be a good thing for everyone to know about it as this could cause significantly more harm than good.
That is perfectly reasonable to me. The situation should be monitored, by people who know how to read and understand the documentation, people who know the proper procedures etc. The “general public” can then get the final story, after the professionals - the auditors and oversight people have made done their investigations and drawn their conclusions. There needs to be oversight.
Agreed. However, I think there are good and valid reasons for keeping the information out of wide spread public circulation…just as I think there are valid reasons for keeping some secrets of a national security or military nature out of the public venue.
I think we agree on almost every point. We would not want the “average citizens” to misinterprete the initial data and start a run on all banks. That would be a disaster. But, sooner or later, “the public” would want to know the final results, even if only in a general “everything is fine” or a “we got the crook” sort of way.
I don’t have any problem giving the public general details or results…just not specifics, at least not at this time. That’s what our public officials are supposed to be for…they are supposed to represent us and to be able to keep an eye on our interests for us. In theory at least.
If there is absolutely no government oversight over the funds we are spending in the various bailouts and zero transparency even to the government there, then I think that is a very Bad Thing™, as it opens the door to abuse.
don’t know that I’d take his word for it though. I’ve heard that the Chinese were putting on the thumbscrews too. In any case, you should have let it fail. Constructive destruction.
Agreed. If it were disclosed just who was at risk of failure were AIG to collapse, the panic could be catastrophic. This company is the financial equivalent of oxygen.
There’s really no right or wrong answer here… they’re all bad options. The Lehman failure caused some serious pain. An AIG failure would multiply that by a significant amount and lead to other failures. I’m not sure we can throw around "should have"s for another 3-10 years.
I’m not sure we’re entitled to know the details. No other deal of the same nature would be subject to to public revelation.
What is disturbing to me is how deregulation of the financial sector has led us to the point where one very slimy company could be in the position that their failure could bring devastation to the rest of the financial world.
Strong measures have to be put in place to rein in the financial community. Everyone can’t be everything…that hasn’t worked.
AIG insured the investments (through credit default swaps and other credit derivatives) of financial institutions the world around. They are indeed the de facto FDIC for many of the banks of Europe where the rules allowed banks to be even more leveraged than they are in the US. If AIG goes under many of these banks would crash, potentially taking down the European economy in the process. Of course this would probably also cause a crash in the world economy that would make the current recession look minor.
Of course, if it was known who AIG insured in this manner, that would probably take down the banks anyway… If you knew that the only entity protecting the bank that has all of your savings was the US Government supported AIG, wouldn’t you withdrawn your money from that institution? Knowing which banks are relying on AIG for the hedging of their investments could easily cause a run on those institutions. Something to be avoided IMO. Same thing with the TARP funds, the government tried to obscure which banks were in trouble so that there would not be a run on those banks…
Holy doodie and feces… So anyone with significant exposure can’t go bankrupt (well not that they can’t… it just wouldn’t do them any good)… This is a real cockup.